Just Go Write Blog

I’ve decided to coin a new phase in PR & marketing speak. From now on, think about ‘customer embracing’ rather than ‘customer-facing’. After a weekend with Charles Melton Wines, I have felt embraced, applauded, saluted and valued. Far better than being ‘faced’, don’t you think?

All I’ve done is regularly buy over a dozen bottles of wine from Charlie each year – and by way of thanks he invited Tony and I to his 25 years in business bash. Over 240 customers flew in from around Australia, where Charlie and his team ran a social weekend of food, museum wine tastings, live music, dancing and more. All we had to do was get there and find a place to stay. The rest was on Charlie.

As a person with a passion for great wine, magical marketing and authentic PR, the weekend provided all three in abundance. Next time you’re thinking about your customers, check in and ask when you embraced them last. And for some great examples of testimonial and word-of-mouth marketing, check out the winery’s Facebook page from the weekend!

When you begin a public relations campaign, one of the most important things of which to be aware is what each media clip means to you in the bigger picture.

You might get a local TV interview here, or be quoted in an article there, and so on. It’s exciting each time coverage rolls in…nice for the ego, it drives people to your website, as well as all the other opportunities I’ve discussed in the past few weeks. But it’s what that coverage can do for you, collectively, that really takes your brand to the next level.

Each time you appear in the media, your “star” rises a little bit. You receive instant credibility and have paved another section of the road on your way to being seen as a national expert. Once you have a nice portfolio of coverage, it’s time to leverage it by creating a reel, which simply means having a video editor take clips from your TV interviews and print coverage, and put them in an exciting and media-friendly format.

Once you have a reel, you can use your coverage to create larger opportunities that will put you in the national spotlight, such as:

• Move from appearing in local media outlets to being an expert on national TV shows, or in national magazines

• Submit to magazines (local, regional or national) or online sites to pitch yourself as a regular columnist

• Send to casting directors of shows that would be appropriate for you to host or co-host

• Send with a book proposal to major publishers

I will continue to delve more deeply into securing some of these national opportunities in the coming weeks, including how to successfully make money from your media coverage.